


The Book of Enos

by cakeisnotpie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Season 8, my own headcanon, what should have happened between seasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-03 23:18:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakeisnotpie/pseuds/cakeisnotpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What should have happened between Season 7 and Season 8 ... Sam has to deal with Dean's sudden disappearance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Book of Enos

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this when I was angry and upset and depressed, so keep that in mind. I honestly think I could handle Sam having a love interest if the show did it the right way. Here, in my humble opinion, is one possibility.

In the minutes after Dean disappeared, the world stopped on its axis and Sam’s heart barely survived the 20 story drop as it plunged to his feet. Kevin was tugging on his arm, yelling something that Sam couldn’t hear over the deafening internal scream roaring in his ears. Blood splatters formed patterns on the ceiling, the walls, the floor and they seemed to be words, clues that kept moving and changing when Sam tried to bring them into focus. He let Kevin drag him from the room, out to the Impala, door standing open, keys in the ignition as if Dean had just stepped out of it seconds before, empty and bereft, scratches marring the paint job, chrome grill pitted with dings from the glass sign. Meg was gone, overturned jugs of industrial cleaner spilling out into the sewer grate, headless bodies lying like grotesque red artworks on the pavement.

Somehow, he started and kept driving, mindlessly steering the car out of the parking lot, down the street, out of town, across the state line, just driving without any destination until he finally wound down. The minutes turned to hours before he succumbed to the darkness that was sleep and the inevitable dreams filled with rows of sharp teeth, angry ghosts, white coated aides, a battered trench coat, a grinning devil, and a stubborn set of green eyes. He’d jerk awake, shaking, eyes searching for the familiar shape but finding only Kevin’s smaller one, slumped on a chair or the bed or wherever he’d drifted off while trying to translate the tablet.

Days became weeks, and Sam started the hunt, not for monsters but for answers: what happened, where Dean was, how did he get him back. He drank in every bit of information the same way he fueled his body on coffee; no rumor or story or vague line in a book was overlooked, each failure pushing him on to the next. Kevin tried to talk to him, tried to argue that this was an unhealthy obsession, but this was Sam’s brother – Dean would, and had, moved heaven and earth to get Sam back, so the least he could do was everything he could in return. So he consulted every hedge wizard, fake psychic, professor, crackpot he could find until he got the first piece of the puzzle … Purgatory.

By then it had been over a month and over twenty four cheap motels, and finally Kevin had had enough, deciding to find a safe house to study and work in instead of bounding around the country from one end to the other on wild goose chases. And he’d had enough of Sam’s darkness, the relentless cloud of despair that hovered over them both, Dean’s name haunting their every step; he could see what Sam was becoming, the hopelessness that threatened to consume him, the hard lines of Sam’s body as he ate less and worked out more, filling every moment of the day with the search.  Seventy two days in and Sam woke from a nightmare where Lucifer was torturing Dean, flaying Sam’s name in his skin, to realize that the other bed was empty, smooth covers undisturbed; he’d forgotten Kevin had left, couldn’t even remember when it had happened even though he’d been the one to paint the symbols on the place they’d found for Kevin to stay.

Time became a blur of towns and people and séances and libraries and stale sheets and empty promises.  Words lost their meaning and Sam stopped sleeping more than snatches of naps at a time to avoid the nightmares. At some point, he knew that the delicate balance he’d gotten from Castiel, when the angel had taken Lucifer into his own head, was tipping back towards the soulless part of him, the Sam that had been a merciless hunter because he didn’t care about anything other than reaching his goal.  And he didn’t care if it got his brother back safely.

Seven months gone and Sam was in the Reserve room of St. Louis University’s library, elbow deep in the little known occult collection of the late Henry J. Knox, a very wealthy and very eccentric steel magnet who had died believing he’d sold his soul to the devil and was going to hell for eternity. He’d amassed every tome he could find on the afterlife – heaven, hell, purgatory – in an effort to find a way out; he didn’t, of course, because Sam knew Henry was mauled to death by a bear that mysteriously got into his house … or a hellhound that caught up to him, more likely.

“If you told me what you were looking for, I might be able to help you narrow down the search.”

He’d seen her, but she hadn’t really registered, just one of the reference librarians who brought the books out of the back for him; loose brown hair, dark brown eyes, pretty but not beautiful, her smile a little crooked and a faint scar near her left eye. Nice curvy figure, probably from keeping in shape based upon her biceps that showed in her short sleeve shirt. For the first time since the day, he actually noticed a woman. Not a get drunk and get laid and kick her out kind of noticing -- he’d tried that to stop thinking for a while -- but as in ‘ask her for coffee’ kind of way. And he immediately felt the stab of pain for forgetting what he was doing, why he was here, what he had to do.  He’d read enough now of Purgatory to begin to have a picture of what Dean must be going through; there was no time for distractions.

“I know you’re researching Purgatory and you’re a hunter.” She smiled at him, friendly and calm as his eyes hardened with suspicion.  “Look, I get the whole secretive thing, really, but didn’t anyone tell you to ask for Cassie?”

He blinked, shook his head. “Cassie?”

“Guess not then. Cassandra Martin, freelance paranormal researcher. Sounds good doesn’t it? Librarian is my day job; I not really cut out to kill things, but I’m damn good at this part of it. So, what do you need? Saving someone from going to Purgatory? Sending someone there?”

“Getting someone out. A human.”

“Damn. That’s terrible. I’ve never heard of that happening.”  Her eyes widened and she sank down in the opposite seat, tapping her fingers absently on the table as she thought. “I can think of two ways to open a portal – both particularly nasty spells by the way – but those are just a door, not to get one specific thing out. You’d have to take whatever wandered you way. Virgin sacrifice, of course, but that will only get you big bads who like that kind of thing, aka the mother of all monsters awhile back. Hmmmm … I’ve got a couple of ideas. Let’s start with the books here and then we’ll work our way out. You’re on the wrong track with these I just brought you. Unless you’re looking to release all evils upon our world.”

From that moment, stacks of books appeared, some vellum of very rare texts she wouldn’t let him touch, books in all kinds of languages and conditions.  By the end of the week, Sam was there from opening to closing, sometimes walking in with her in the morning, other times making sure she got to her car at night in the tiny parking lot surrounded by shadows and trees before he went back to his room to polish off the bottle of hunter’s helper so he might catch a few hours of sleep. It only made sense to get coffee before he started, so he would sometimes meet her early at a local place to grab a cup, talk over what they’d found the day before and the plan for the next day. Sundays, when the reserves were closed, Sam spent the day on the internet, checked in with Kevin, packed up and moved to a new motel before the stolen credit card got too hot, and maybe hustled some pool for extra cash if he could stand doing it alone.

When they ran out of possibilities at the library, Cassie invited him to her house, a small two bedroom bungalow outside the city with two surprises. The first was an underground fall-out shelter built in the 1950s with a library of magical texts and histories and ancient tales to rival any collection, plus a database of journals and notes from hundreds of hunters, dating back years, before Sam’s grandfather’s time. The second was a golden retriever by the absurd name of Enos who was more likely to lick an intruder to death than growl at him. Both made Sam’s heart thaw a little bit, but he refused to acknowledge it.

Finally, Sam felt like he was making progress; for every lead that didn’t pan out, Cassie would find two more possibilities, back tracking to pursue new avenues when they ran into blind alleys, keeping careful note of where they’d already been.  She’d leave him there with the books when she left for work, come back with Chinese or pizza or make a pot of homemade chili that would last them both a couple of days. She never rushed him, never insisted he move on or give up or accept that Dean was gone, just continued to keep looking and putting food in front of him.

Four weeks after that first day in the library, Sam looked up to find that he had moved into her place, crashing on her couch whenever he did sleep, the Impala parked out front, his toothbrush in the one bathroom, Enos curled around his feet when he was reading. Driving back to the motel late at night and then returning early the next morning just wasted time he could be researching, so he simply stayed and she didn’t throw him out. Instead, she left instructions on how to use the washer and dryer, texted him when it was time to put the casserole for dinner, and he fixed her leaky faucet when he got frustrated by a difficult reading. There’d be a lead, a name of someone to talk to, and Sam would drive halfway across the country to chase it down, only to return at two a.m. in the morning, open the door with his key, toe off his shoes, and take a beer – the ones she started buying for him – out of the fridge. Sometimes, she’d come out of her room in her ridiculously oversized t-shirts and shorts she slept in and sit with him, asking how it went, what he’d learned; even if it didn’t help their search, she was always interested, every detail going down in her notes in case someone needed it in the future.

On one such night, he kissed her for the first time; another false lead and she’d leaned in, smelling of her favorite vanilla body wash, told him it was okay, that she had found another passage in yet another book, and then his hands were cradling her face as his lips hungrily sought hers. It surprised him, how much he needed her, not just for sex but for her stability, her kindness, her absolute faith that they were going to find Dean.  Maybe it was also about her very lovely breasts and hips and that tilt to her head when she was listening intently and the way her teeth worried her bottom lip when she was thinking.  His tongue slipped inside then she was moaning, pliable in his arms, and he pulled away, made some sort of bumbling excuse about being tired, worn out, and let her go back to bed alone. Unable to sleep, he took up the book she’d been talking about and started back to work, shoving down any desire because he didn’t deserve it, didn’t trust it wasn’t more than gratitude on his part and sympathy on hers.

When Kevin called the next day, frantic because Crowley was close, Sam took that as a sign and went to help him, two weeks lost to driving and hiding and laying false trails until they were sure they weren’t being followed. He almost didn’t go back because he wanted to and he couldn’t have anything good in his life, no house or books or perfect woman or dog, not until this was over and Dean was here and probably not even then. She’d been texting him her progress, and she’d found what might be a communication spell, a way to punch a message through to Dean, to tell him where to be when Sam opened a door. He turned the car towards St Louis because she didn’t ask him where he was or what he was doing, never once mentioned the kiss, didn’t ask him to come back; he got in at 9:30 p.m. and he never spent the night on the couch again, lying in her arms instead and really sleeping, getting closer to the right spell, the right time, the right ingredients. He began to hope again that they’d make it work, he would get his brother back, and he’d change things between him and Dean.

It took two more months to get everything worked out, translated, gathered, and prepared. A specific night, a sacred place … it was so close that Sam wasn’t sleeping again, this time out of anxiousness, walking Enos late at night to burn off worries, going over and over the details. He’d just come back in, tossing the keys on the counter, when his phone vibrated, the old phone, the one he always kept charged and in his pocket just in case.

“Sammy?” Dean asked. “Can you come get me?”

He grabbed the duffel that was always packed, rubbed Enos’ head and bent to give Cassie a quick kiss.

“Is it …” she asked sleepily.

“It’s him.”

She blinked and cleared her eyes. “Go get him. Text me and I’ll have something good ready to eat when you get back.”

Sam tossed the duffel in the backseat, revved the engine, and backed out with a smile on his face. Silver knife, holy water, industrial cleaner … he was going to see Dean and find out what had happened.

And Dean was just going to have to deal with the dog.


End file.
